Over the last 60-year period, countless attempts have been made to design VTOL machines outside the realm of the standard helicopter configuration, but only a handful of configurations proved reliable and were only limited to some military or marginal applications. The VTOL developments, that have been trying to go beyond the limitations of the standard helicopter, have indeed failed quite systematically and never entered any commercial applications.
While helicopters tend to have excellent VTOL performance, their cruise speed tends to be limited. The Harrier Jump Jet was developed to enable VTOL performance with a higher cruise speed. However, the Harrier tended to be expensive to operate and top speed was nonetheless limited considering the power plant it incorporated. Similarly the V22 Osprey was developed and had initially stability problems, which has led to multiple crashes. It still does not offer great recovery capability in case of power failure or rotor failure.
Accordingly, a new aircraft configuration is disclosed here that is capable of VTOL/STOL operation with a relatively high cruise speed yet is safer to operate.